


The Smitten Detective (I.E. Hidden Post #57)

by Gaffat



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adlock, F/M, Headcanon, John's blog, Post S4, The lying detective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 09:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18149867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gaffat/pseuds/Gaffat
Summary: A very long time ago John Watson realized that not everything of consequence that occurred in the life of Sherlock Holmes was fit for immediate public consumption - but that has never stopped him from writing about it. Post Series 4. An outside perspective on Sherlock and Irene's 'interesting' relationship dynamic. No angst.  Rated T for language and dirty insinuations.





	The Smitten Detective (I.E. Hidden Post #57)

Sherlock Holmes is not a romantic, by any meager stretch of the imagination. In fact, if there were a term in the English language adequate enough to be defined as the polar opposite of a romantic, I wouldn't hesitate to employ it in regards to the world's only consulting detective. But, as with everything else in the complex world surrounding him, it's never quite so simple as that, either. For every area of disinterest in his over-wrought brain, there never ceases to be an exception to the rule. He hates the television, except for when he needs to pass the time.; he's seemingly ignorant of any charms the fairer sex may possess, until he decides to point out which one's they're lacking; he doesn't eat while on a case, unless you buy a very particular brand of biscuits and force them into his line of sight; and he doesn't have a single romantic bone in his body until The Woman is brought into the equation.   
  
Now when I say 'romantic', don't think I mean that in the normal sense of the word - marriage and babies aren't something I can see him ever willingly seeking out, even for the likes of her.  That man's idea of a valentine is probably the still-beating heart of one of her enemies, but thankfully (dreadfully?) that woman would happily accept it, and even prefer it over the largest diamond at Tiffany's. Domesticity, suffice to say, has never been a prominent part of their 'relationship'. They do so enjoy flirting with it though.   
  
The way anyone else would take a holiday from their mundane desk job to somewhere more exciting, every once in a great while, The Woman formerly known as Irene Adler takes a brief respite from whatever chaos she's getting up to on the other side of the pond and finds her way to Baker Street. Sherlock never seems surprised, though whether that's because she warns him ahead of time of her eminent arrival or if he can sense her presence like some sort of lovesick bloodhound, I don't know (I mostly suspect the latter). But one moment everything is perfectly normal, and the next she's there - and the world has turned upside down.   
  
It's never really that dramatic a shift, though, truly. Sherlock is still very...Sherlock. Not even Cupid could fix that. It's his resolute single-mindedness that suddenly seems to take its leave. Whatever has been at the forefront of his thought process is, if not completely usurped, carefully shifted over as if to make room for her. Normally anyone or anything having such an impact on his needle-point focus would annoy him - and sometimes it still does, 'defiance' added to the cluster of other emotions that seem to radiate from him in her presence. More often than not, however, he accepts this adjustment without complaint. If he's particularly deep in the depths of boredom, dare I say with relief.   
  
One moment he'll be in a rush to go over some experiment or contact a client, and then there she is - sometimes sitting in his chair looking over a file he'd left lying on the floor or lounging in the bathtub as though she had always been there, and hadn't just broken in. If the timing is really inconvenient, he might shoot her a look not unlike one you or I would give a beloved but stubbornly misbehaved house cat - but it still happens, the immediate recalculation of his priorities. He probably just pulls up a day planner in his mind and starts crossing things off and pushing them around. Brooding can wait ‘til next week, there'll be time to annoy Mycroft tomorrow afternoon, etc. The case - if there is one - still gets solved, of course. No force, however unstoppable, would ever halt the investigative side of his brain. If anything we just gain an amused spectator or even another educated opinion.   
  
However as soon as the thinking is done and the only thing left of it is the 'boring' part - contacting the client, handing over evidence, explaining all of his elaborate deductions to a mostly confused and unappreciative audience - I tend to finish it out. Hell, I volunteer to do so, or else it simply doesn't get done. Found that out the hard way once when he stopped answering Mycroft's phone calls halfway through halting a smuggling operation and - well, suffice to say he always knocks now, even if he did have a spare key made just to be intrusive. Not that it seemed to phase either of them. Hardly anything does, during these short visits.   
  
As affronted or even offended Sherlock will no doubt be at the turn of phrase, the world by and large ceases to exist to him when The Woman is in town. Once the mostly-metaphorical detective hat is off, there's nothing that can begin to compete with her hold over his attention. I've certainly never had any interest in trying.   
  
It took me less than five minutes, the first time she showed up, to see how obviously under-stated he had been when he told me that it was 'just texting' between them that first night I discovered their continued interaction. There had been a tension between them since the moment they'd met, obviously, but it had evolved somehow. It wasn't the unresolved curiosity it once was, but it wasn't a comfortable fondness like most couples have after a reasonable period of time either. It was trapped somewhere in the middle: a constant thrum of kinetic energy almost. It was the power of uncertainty and yet the knowing acknowledgement of potential. I've never seen it’s like anywhere else, probably because no other two people in the world have the patience and tenacity to make such an unreasonable constant work. Coupled with the fact they seemed to be in a continuous competition with each other, for what stakes I still don't know, it was a tangible thing. I'd call it a 'battle for dominance' but that seems far too on the nose for my taste.   
  
No, the only thing out of the ordinary about her physical proximity to the detective was that I was now privy to it. I'd say I'm now 'in on the joke', but that doesn't sound right, as funny as the idea of Sherlock shagging a (former?) dominatrix sounds. More like being an unwilling member of an obscure and elitist secret society whose meetings I don't attend and yet end up bearing witness to anyway. Then again, with Sherlock Holmes, when don't I feel like that?   
  
Neither of them have ever asked me to make myself scarce during these periods (the shortest being all of 12 hours or what I would deem An International Booty Call - the longest was a full week: Christmas to New Year, leading into a suspicious spike in our usual caseload), but I often do it anyway. No matter the innocence of the conversation they're having - or not having, it seems voyeuristic somehow. And not just in the sexual way. There's a certain foreign intimacy to their seemingly benign interactions that makes it almost more intrusive to walk in on them having tea than any of the more explicit scenarios that end up occurring at 221B Baker Street behind closed doors.   
  
There are exceptions of course - the three of us have managed a few pleasant evenings (as pleasant as Sherlock is capable of), but all in all, I leave them to themselves. For as suddenly as she arrives, she's just as quickly gone - leaving no obvious sign of her presence save the lingering of her perfume and usually some spontaneous possession that finds its way to the mantelpiece, and remains there until the next time she inevitably appears in another few months. Hell, maybe the next year. A bottle of red nail lacquer, a hair pin. Last time it was a dagger. I think it's probably deliberate - an excuse, outside of sheer interest, to return. Or maybe some sort of weird code, fuck if I know. Regardless, as soon as her presence dissipates, the Consulting Detective is back to his obnoxious and hyper vigilant self, as though nothing and no one could ever distract him from his single-minded search for problems to solve and humans to outsmart.   
  
If Sherlock's unhappy with this unstable 'arrangement' - hell, even if he's perfectly happy with it - he's never really said. In fact, he makes almost no comment about her at all when she's not here. This alone, apparently unbeknownst to him, makes her unique in the whole of the human race. The only exception seems to be under the specific pretense of making his older brother look both nauseous and disapproving at the same time. As for Mycroft Holmes, if  'The Ice Man' ever had any specific ill intentions towards The Woman who nearly brought the nation to its knees, he's apparently given up on them for now. He's even stopped making lewd comments about beheadings just to make Sherlock angry.   
  
Every once in an even greater while - only thrice in my memory - some mysterious 'case' will arise from overseas and Sherlock himself will vanish from the streets of London for a number of days. He always asks me if I'd like to come along, and I always give some sort of excuse to remain: can't find a sitter for that long, my passport expired, etc. I know what he's really doing, just as he knows that my passport is perfectly legal, and yet neither of us say a word. I don't know if it's some twisted way to extend the 'mystique' of a secret tryst, or he's just helping her out with something very illegal, but I'm not sure I want to.   
  
It's not up to me to say if this sort of dynamic will last - if either of them will eventually require something more steady or resolute, or simply grow bored with one another. But for now, as I write this, Sherlock is restocking the kitchen for the first time in months without being harassed and has ceased whining about Lestrade not calling him back all weekend - so I doubt it's going to be a concern for a long while. By morning I'm sure I will walk in to witness my boorish and manner-less best mate who will rarely even boil his own water trip over himself to have her coffee made by the time she wakes, so he can regale her with the gory details of how he solved the grisliest murder we've had since her last visit.   
  
And they say romance is dead.


End file.
